Doctor tells Plain Township amputee that surgery was a success

Thursday

Less than two months after a groundbreaking procedure on a woman who'd lost most of her right arm, the surgeon who performed the operation declared it a success.

Less than two months after a groundbreaking operation on a woman who had lost most of her right arm, the surgeon who performed the procedure declared it a success.

“You did it; you made history ... get ready to do some interviews,” Dr. Ajay Seth told Melissa Loomis after an exam in his office this week.

Doctor and patient have grown close in the six months they have known each other. Seth, an orthopedic surgeon at Spectrum Orthopaedics, says Loomis is one of the most resilient, positive people he has met, making her an ideal candidate for the surgery.

The 43-year-old Loomis, of Plain Township, trusted Seth, though he never before had performed the surgery, which should allow her to “feel” with a yet-to-be-fitted prosthetic arm.

Both have remained confident after the tedious daylong surgery Dec. 10 at Aultman Hospital. However, it was expected to take as long as eight months to know for sure if the surgery completely worked.

They didn’t have to wait that long.

TSR AND TMR

The surgery on Loomis, whose right arm was amputated between her elbow and shoulder last summer to save her from a life-threatening infection, actually was a combination of two procedures, targeted sensory reinnervation (TSR) and targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR). The latter has been performed a few hundred times around the world, but TSR was completed only a handful of times in Canada and Italy.

They never had been performed together in the U.S.

In TMR, some of Loomis’ nerves were transferred to muscles in her upper arm. The nerves are supposed to grow into that muscle, so that when she thinks “open my hand,” for example, the rewired muscles will contract, and a myoelectric prosthesis will pick up the signal and open her hand.

In TSR, the goal was to provide Loomis a feeling of sensation with a prosthetic limb. By placing sensors on the prosthesis, the patient can regain some feeling.

Last summer, Loomis was bitten by a raccoon as she tried to separate it from her dogs in her backyard. Her arm became severely infected. Seth told her he would save it, but he couldn’t. Ultimately, he had to amputate it to save her life.

So he set out to make amends, to give her the best science had to offer. Seth spoke to experts around the world, flew to Chicago to observe a TMR surgery and researched the subject to the point he was confident he could do the surgery on Loomis himself.

‘MY THUMB HURTS’

Before Tuesday, Loomis had displayed signs the TMR portion of the surgery was a success. She would be able to use her brain to fire muscles in what remained of her right arm to move a prosthetic arm. But the epiphany for doctor and patient occurred Tuesday.

She laid on the exam table. Using a long swab to probe what remained of her arm, Seth asked if she could feel anything. Nothing. Nothing. Then, he hit a certain spot.

“What happens when I do that?” he asked as he poked her skin.

“My thumb hurts,” she said.

It took a second for both to digest it.

Loomis broke into a large smile. Seth did the same.

The thumb she spoke of is her right thumb — the one that’s missing.

That means the nerves Seth rerouted during the surgery are beginning to grow. He expects the “fingers” to follow suit in coming weeks.

Next week, Loomis will begin fitting for a prosthetic arm. From there, Seth hopes to get her placed into research trials in Cleveland.